Deals

Deals

by Mike Masnick




WinZip About To Get More Annoying

from the opening-itself-up-to-the-competition dept

A few years ago, we noted how the zip battles were progressing -- as the need for compression software seemed to be dwindling (huge hard drives and broadband made compressed files less important). Still, WinZip remains one of the most popular utilities, in part because it was shareware/nagware that never really forced you to pay. However, it sounds like that's about to change as some turnaround experts have bought out the company behind WinZip and will immediately begin trying to get more people to pay by being a bit more strict in the way they set up the shareware. Of course, given that there's plenty of competition in the zipping market, and the decreased need for zipping utilities, it seems like all this will really do is drive more people to alternatives -- including not zipping up files at all.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Jul 17th, 2005 @ 11:13pm

    7zip or Winrar

    by anonymous

    7zip for a free alternative:
    http://www.7-zip.org/

    Winrar for a nagware alternative:
    http://www.rarlab.com/

    Haven't used Winzip in more than 7 years now.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Jul 18th, 2005 @ 1:22am

    Windows XP

    Most windows users are using windows XP now I think. Which has zip support built in. So unless you have special requirements for zipping using an external utility seems a bit odd.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Jul 18th, 2005 @ 7:26am

    Re: Windows XP

    by Michael

    Damn skippy! There's no reason to use WinZip any more. These days, if you're going to install a third-party utility, the chief requirement is the total number of formats it supports. WinZip never did very well in this category. They've added a few, but their competition always stays ahead.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Jul 18th, 2005 @ 9:24am

    Re: Windows XP

    Agreed. I never understood these people. At work, or for friends, people want Winzip. No matter how much I explain to them that XP has Zip functionality built-in I always hear, "Yeah, but I want to download WinZip anyway." Why?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Jul 18th, 2005 @ 5:57pm

    info-zip

    by aNonMooseCowherd

    Another free zip/unizp: http://www.info-zip.org/

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It